Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) calls on Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Garcia asserted in a letter to Kennedy that the cabinet secretary has a history of misinformation about the virus and disease, and that planned cuts (what he calls “shocking and unprecedented”) will lose lives.
“We are concerned that your motivations are undermining HIV funding, and the motivation for delaying preventive measures and research is not based on sound science, but in misleading and false information, you have previously spread about the spread of HIV and AIDS, including your repeated claims that HIV does not cause AIDS,” wrote Garcia, a Democrat who ranked by the House Oversight Committee.
Health and Public Services officials did not immediately comment on Thursday. Kennedy couldn’t arrive immediately.
President Trump and Kennedy have previously defended the health and public service programs and staff under Kennedy’s leadership. An agency spokesman said they will pay more attention to Kennedy’s priorities, “to end the chronic disease epidemic in the United States by focusing on safe, healthy food, clean water and eliminating environmental toxins.”
Kennedy said the department under his watch “will do more things – more (more), with lower costs for taxpayers.”
Garcia’s letter (who was co-written with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (d-ill.), is a ranking Democrat on the Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee – requiring the health department to produce a list of all HIV/AIDS-related funds that cut all interpretations with these funds and identify explanations for elimination and other documents.
The letter is the latest attempt by the Democrats to coordinate with health experts and LGBTQ+ organizations to challenge what they see as an inexplicable and coordinated effort to dismantle one of the most devastating and deadly epidemics in human history, aiming to control public health programs designed to control and ultimately end.
On the same day, Senate Republicans agreed to the Trump administration’s request to withdraw billions of dollars in public media and foreign aid, but rejected an earlier White House request to include about $400 million in HIV/AIDS funding for the president’s emergency plan to promote AIDS relief or save millions of dollars in living in poor and impoverished people.
The House had previously voted in favor of an earlier version of the measure, which did cut funding for Pepfar, founded by President George W. Bush in 2003. But senators worked hard to restore funds before agreeing to sign a wider withdrawal package.
Now, the House must approve the Senate version of the measures by Friday in order for them to take effect.
In an interview with The Times, Garcia said he had long viewed Kennedy as a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” who “twilled” on HIV, vaccines and other medical sciences. He said that now Kennedy is the Secretary of Health, and the American people should know whether national and international health decisions are driven by his unfounded personal beliefs.
“People need to understand what he is going to do, and I think he has to be responsible and responsible for his actions,” Garcia said.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi pointed out in their letter that recent scientific advances, including the creation of new preventive drugs, are making the elimination of HIV more achievable than ever. However, Kennedy and the Trump administration are pushing the country and the world in the opposite direction, they said.
“Since taking office, the Trump administration has systematically attacked HIV-related funds and provided critical HIV-related services and care to those who need it most,” Garcia and Krishnamoorthi wrote. “These interferences will threaten the most risk of HIV in Americans, and many people with HIV will get sick or infect others without relying on treatment options.”
This letter outlines many examples of such cuts, including:
- The HIV Prevention Division of the Centers for Elimination of Disease Control and Prevention, terminates or delays the office’s billion-dollar HIV Prevention grant.
- A $258 million program within the National Institutes of Health has ended its plan to find a vaccine to prevent new HIV infection.
- Dozens of NIH grants have been terminated for HIV research, especially in preventing new infections among black and Latino gay men who are at risk of disproportionate viral infections.
- Targets of the HIV prevention program abroad, including Pepfar.
- The United States is back from the Global Foundation to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Many in the medical and foreign aid communities expressed serious concerns about Kennedy’s appointment as health secretary, in part because of his past comments on HIV/AIDS. Kennedy said in June 2023 that “candidates are much better than candidates with HIV than the cause of AIDS.”
In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorthi called on a specific theory that recreational drugs called “poppers” could cause HIV, not HIV, wrote: “We are very concerned that the Trump administration’s HIV-related funding cuts are indestructible and do not take root in the public health situation in the political agenda.
Kennedy is skeptical about the link between HIV and AIDS and good scientific conflicts, which has long been accepted by medical institutions and the federal government. Research around the world has demonstrated this link, finding that HIV is the only common factor in AIDS cases.
In August 2023, about a week before Kennedy threw support at Trump, his presidential campaign involved controversy surrounding his “Popper” comments, noting that Kennedy didn’t think Popper was the “only cause” of AIDS, but argued that they were “important factors” in the progress of the disease in the early 1980s.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi also noted that local officials and advocates in Los Angeles County restored approximately $20 million in HIV/AIDS funding last month and about $20 million in HIV/AIDS funding nationwide.
After the resumption of the funds, Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) sent another letter to Kennedy and other House members, citing estimates from the AIDS Research Foundation (AMFAR) that nationwide cuts could result in additional deaths in AIDS-related events within five years.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi cite the same statistics in their letter.
Garcia, a gay man, also said in an interview with The Times that Kennedy’s actions so far “rightly angry” is worth knowing whether Kennedy is using his own conspiracy theory, and his own distorted view of the facts” to demolish the public health foundations surrounding HIV and AIDS to bring them across their public health to make them work to achieve it as the founding of the age.
